Weather Fixation 'Fix'

East of République, Paris is more - republican.

'European Rules' Contest Winners

Paris:- Monday, 17. April 2000:- A couple of days ago, one of Metropole's few UK readers who write, accused me of having a 'weather fixation.' As an UK resident, this writer probably knows about these things. To prove it, he added a complete update to recent weather events in the Schwarzwald.

Last week I started off this column with, 'I am pretty sure the weather is interesting, but there isn't much we can do about it. No matter what I write here, there is going to be weather and no amount of forecasting is going to make it predictable.'

This was supposed to be taken as a hint that after a few weeks of putting in more 'weather news,' I am now going to put in less, or pretend that there is no weather worth mentioning in Paris.

There is weather-myth in Paris, much celebrated in song and fable. This has sold millions of recordings. If it is good enough to do this, then it must be true. Whatever it really is, as myth it is more acceptable.

Thus, for this month, we have 'April In Paris.' Forget my endless warnings about snow at Easter. It may happen, but officially, the weather will be according to the song, 'April In Paris.'

I will listen more closely to the honey-voiced Radio-FIP ladies, to try to catch the 'weather song' for May. I'm not sure, but I think it's called something like the 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg.'

Last week's feature about the fabulously wonderful '2000 Nains à Bagatelle' exhibition brought emails from three readers, none of whom chose to remark about the 'Au Bistro' item concerning the dreadful dwarf-napping by the mysterious 'Dwarf Liberation Front.'

Ms. Andrea Robinson, writing from Georgia, said garden-dwarfs are considered to be 'low-rent' where she lives, without actually saying she lives in a 'low-rent' area and is therefore an authority. She admitted that she may be a 'garden snob.'

She added, "I always held Paris in such high esteem for good taste!" and "What is this world coming to?"

I want to know the answer to this too. Garden-dwarfs are not supposed to leave you indifferent. Ms. Robinson almost has the right attitude - if you are anti-gnomes - and for this reason I am not quoting her in full, because she is pretty steamed up.

As far as 'good taste' in Paris goes, this has been in debate for a little over 2000 years and shows no signs of being resolved. I'm not trying to say that Paris is some sort of paragon of 'bad taste,' but 'good taste' is a fairly recent phenomena - usually classed as bourgeois - and this is why it is recent.

Before a little while ago - in 'Paris time' - there were no bourgeois here, and everything was in 'bad taste' to one degree or another. 'Good taste' started around Baron Haussmann's time and residents are still disagreeing about it.

The Baron did such a good job of inflicting 'good taste' on Parisians that they had to leave town in order to have a 'good time.'

This is no longer the case. You can now have 'bad taste' 'good times' right in Paris. But the idea of going out of town for 'good times' still remains.

There is, for example, the entire Ile-de-France to have 'good times' in. This region surrounds Paris and has many attractions that are worth the bit of extra travelling time required to reach them.

There may even be some garden gnomes in Louis' park at Versailles. He did have the place built some time before there were any bourgeois around to 'tut-tut' so-called examples of 'bad taste.'

We must not forget that one of the causes of the Révolution was what was considered 'wretched excess,' and Louis' house in Versailles is a world-class example of this.

Several alert readers surprised me very early last week by entering and winning Metropole's little contest. In case you missed it, I usually finish off this page with some utter nonsense.

I don't know why I do this. It has something to do with past-deadline computer over-dose. Last week, it occurred to me that nobody had ever written to tell me to cut this nonsense out - so I added a contest to see if anyone was paying attention.

When I surfaced on Tuesday and let the computer and its mail program download the latest correspondence, Charles Bush, Ron Smith, Paul Babbit and Jerry Van Vactor turned out to be the winners. All of their emails were dated Monday, 10. April.

At first I thought Jerry was not a winner, because he added the 'UTC' time, which made it Tuesday, 11. April. One of the contest rules called for 'including the time where you are,' and Jerry's 'UTC' time was were I am, not him. The Internet and its mail software dated Jerry's entry as Monday, 10. April.

Jerry objected to my interpretation of the 'contest rules,' and claimed he was merely a runner-up. However, all Metropole contests are run on 'European Rules.' These allow for multiple winners. In fact, 'European Rules' allow everybody who enters a contest to be a 'winner.'

As I was so late with putting Metropole online last week, I thought it was okay to declare everybody a winner who entered the contest correctly while it was still Monday, anywhere in the world.

To all othe contestants who entered the contest, thanks for sending in your entries. Now that 'European Rules' are clear to everybody, for the next contest you will know you have a good chance of winning if you are just a bit quicker.